Pindorama

The artistic creations of Lia Rodrigues are emblematic of her political
and social engagement. As the driving force of an arts centre in one of
Rio’s largest favelas, the Brazilian chorographer makes no distinction
between her dance and the heterogeneous society in which she implants
herself. Pindorama was Brazil’s name before Portuguese colonisation.
Pindorama
is also the name of the final part of a trilogy that began with
Pororoca
(see Kunstenfestivaldesarts 2010). It describes a physical, sensorial,
and spiritual landscape in constant transformation. With scant resources
– a bare room, a plastic tarp, naked bodies, water – the choreographer
evokes a torrent of images. A group of dancers moves between
vulnerability and violence, between virginity and destruction. From
solitary individuals, they evolve into a teeming crowd; they dream of a
collective body as a shield against the fury of the elements. With this
compelling ‘living installation’, Lia Rodrigues plunges us into a
utopia.

Interview Lia Rodrigues (2013)

Pindorama is the third part of a trilogy that began with Pororoca and focuses on the question of the collective. What relationship is there between these different pieces? Is Pindorama bringing this cycle to a close?A
creation always begins a long time beforehand and finds its way
internally before taking concrete shape. I was already thinking about
this piece when I was working on the previous one – and I’d already the
idea of a triptych in mind, like three connected objects. For me this
piece is the third part of a triptych, but I still wouldn’t say that
it’s bringing it to a close. Rather it’s opening up a new horizon, a new
starting point. The word “trilogy” immediately makes me think of
something heavy, very steady, like three blocks, while for me, the
passages, the echoes, everything moving between these pieces is very
fluid. That’s why I prefer talking about a triptych, like paintings
whose motifs become merged and respond to one another. In practical
terms, the main change in this piece concerns the dancers. I’m keeping
11 dancers – that seems a good balance for me for dealing with the issue
of the collective – but this time, I wanted to have a new team. It’s
about discovering and moving towards the other person. It’s risky, but
exciting at the same time. So I did an audition based on the theme of
Clarice Lispector’s work. I’ve run workshops about her in Brazil. What
we did around her work really helped me enter into the creative process.
The piece itself is not going to be based on Clarice Lispector’s books,
but she’s a huge source of inspiration for me: she opens up an
imaginary space. Her literature helps me embark on reflection.

Is this why you wanted to place the collective at the heart of the creative act again?I’m
interested in this question of the collective because it’s symbolic of
my entire approach. It’s also a metaphor for the creative process that’s
been part of my work in the Maré favela for almost ten years now, with
the arts centre, dance school etc. All the relationships I’ve had to put
in place, that have to be maintained to be able to be there – all the
people you have to work with – none of that can work except with a
certain idea of the collective that consists of hope, compromise,
discussions and energy. This question looms so large in my life on a
day-to-day basis that I need to give shape to it in another way through
dance. Basically it’s always a work in progress! The triptych is a
response to this need for elaboration. And when I say that the piece is
not bringing things to an end, I mean that it’s also opening up new
ideas, new practices outside the show: it’s opening up to reality. The
main link between these pieces is of course the question of the
relationship with the other: how to be yourself while remaining in a
relationship with others and how that changes your relationship with
yourself. There is a word in Portuguese which is a verb form of the word
“other”: outrar. It means to be other, to go towards the
other, to be in relation to the other, and this verb perfectly describes
the type of relationship we’re looking for in this piece.

The three pieces in the triptych begin with a “p”. Is that just by chance or is there a reason for it?When I created Piracema,
the second piece, it was completely accidental. It was only afterwards
that I realised that the three pieces begin with a “p”. Perhaps it’s a
particular feature of the Tupi language spoken by the native people of
Brazil – the three words come from this language. For Pindorama,
the process was slightly different: I chose this title because of its
significance for me. And it came to me a lot earlier than usual. Usually
the title comes very late in the creative process, it comes to
crystallise something. Here I needed its significance to embark on the
work.

The word came first, as if it already formed a landscape? What significance does the word have for you?The word landscape is very apt, and that’s what Pindorama made
me think of. It was Brazil’s name before the Portuguese arrived. I read
something written by a Brazilian historian who said that when the
Portuguese arrived in their caravels along the coast, they initially
described an “empty land”. In fact there were five million people living
here in a way that the colonisers were incapable of seeing. What they
saw as an empty land was an inhabited, cultivated land. This is a very
important metaphor for me: it’s the idea that when we don’t recognise
something, we don’t see it. When you don’t recognise the other person’s
culture, the other person doesn’t exist. Either the difference is denied
or it constitutes a threat that needs eradicating. What can you do in
an empty country? You can do anything. Anything’s possible! The people
living there are nothing, they’re inferior. The inhabitants’ culture,
subjectivity, creation is completely denied. For me, it all functions
like a strong metaphor for thinking about the other person. Where does
this desire for domination, for destruction come from, and how can
something else be invented? On the other hand it led me to contemporary
Brazil, and to the place that Brazil occupies in our imagination: abroad
you have the feeling that the country’s growing, that everything’s
fine. But the country is built on a very dangerous kind of economic
bubble that could burst at any moment. The World Cup that’s due to be
held here is a very good example of this: there’s plenty of money
around, but for millions of people the situation is very complicated and
inequalities are continually growing. I see it working here in the Maré
favela. The area is starting to be “pacified” by the police, but in
other respects people living here have nothing.

The idea of the “collective body” brought out in this
project, as well as the invention of “rituals”, might in certain
respects make people think of the work of the Brazilian artist Lygia
Clark. Is she a reference for you?It’s funny that you mention Lygia Clark. I showed a first “attempt” last week [in 2013, Ed.],
a “state” of ongoing improvisations, and what we did was heavily
inspired by Lygia Clark’s work. In particular the experiments I did on
her work, The Tunnel, when I recreated it for an exhibition
dedicated to her in 1998. Works of the body, participative art,
biological architecture… all these notions she invented are very
important to me; they run through and feed all my creations in one way
or another. We tried to recreate the experience – in another way of
course – of a great journey in a tunnel by leaning on other people’s
bodies. We tried to find ritual actions that allowed us to bore a way
through.

Basically the tunnel, this passage, is also a metaphor for the piece itself, which constitutes a passage to something else?Yes,
it could absolutely be seen like that. Afterwards, of course, we’re
still at the research stage. It’s hard to know what the final piece will
look like. I’m at the start of work with bodies. I’ve lots of images in
my head, starting from these ideas – of emptiness, passage, landscape –
but it’s always very different when it takes shape. I’d like to create
some ephemeral landscapes – physical and mental landscapes – and work on
all the nuances, all the possibilities of being together or of not
being together.

In this view of landscape and incarnation of a collective
body, are you going to design a set or will everything be carried
directly by the dancers?I think that like the other pieces, Pindorama will
be as simple as possible in terms of space for aesthetic and financial
reasons. I always try to make pieces that can be produced and staged in
my space, in Maré, where there is practically nothing, no lights, no
sets… I start from that void even if there are eleven dancers, which is
already fairly large… For Pororoca, my idea was that the entire
piece could be put in a suitcase so that it could travel anywhere in
Brazil – even in places with no technical equipment. For me, from a
political point of view, it’s very important given the situation of
dance in Brazil, which is very problematic. There’s not enough of it,
there are too few spaces and it’s not seen enough. This work is
therefore completely different from what I can do when I work in France.
I want to do shows that can easily go to people. Nomadic pieces for
collective bodies…

Born in Brazil,
Lia Rodrigues
established Groupo
Andança in 1977 after studying classical ballet in São Paulo. She lived
in France between 1980 and 1982, joining Maguy Marin’s dance company.
When she returned to Brazil, she moved to Rio de Janeiro and set up the
Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Danças. Her choreographies have won numerous
awards in Brazil and abroad. She set up the annual Panorama Rioarte de
Dança contemporary dance festival in 1992, running it until 2005. In
France, she created one of the
Fables à la Fontaine
in 2005 and
Hymnen
in 2007. La Ferme du Buisson offered her a Carte Blanche in April 2010
and the French government made her a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et
des Lettres. Her creations include
Ce dont nous sommes faits
(2000),
Formas Breves
(2002)
Incarnat
(2005),
Chantiers poétiques
(2008),
Pororoca
(2009) and
Piracema
(2011). She has been based in the Maré favela in Rio de Janeiro since 2003, working on artistic and teaching projects.